Sayo Yasuda
The true form of Beatrice, and writer of the message bottle forgeries. Her true name is Lion Ushiromiya, and was given the fake name Sayo Yasuda ''(安田 紗代) after the cliff incident. When she was taken into the Fukuin House, she was given the "blessed name" Shannon. After Kinzo's death, she succeeded the headship and became the true head of the Ushiromiya family. Yasu is the child of Kinzo Ushiromiya and Beatrice Ushiromiya who was born due to the result of incest. Yasu is, at the same time, Kinzo's child and grandchild. The series hinges on the mysteries surrounding Yasu. Relationships *Beatrice - character, role *Shannon - character, role, imaginary friend (originally) *Kanon - character, role, imaginary friend (originally) *Battler Ushiromiya - rival, love interest, nephew *George Ushiromiya - fiancée, nephew *Jessica Ushiromiya - love interest, niece *Maria Ushiromiya - best friend, niece *Eva Ushiromiya - half-sister, successor *Chiyo Kumasawa - mother figure *Genji Ronoue - father figure *Beatrice Ushiromiya - mother, half-sister *Kinzo Ushiromiya - father, grandfather, successor of *Clair Vaux Bernardus - original Beatrice appearance, vessel (during Requiem) *Lion Ushiromiya - alternative existence Appearance Before creating the persona Beatrice, Yasu appears as a frail, young girl with long hair that covers her eyes. They are usually dressed in the traditional Fukuin maid outfit. After Yasu creates and "becomes" Beatrice, she takes on the persona of Shannon and begins to cut her hair shorter and wear pads to simulate breasts. As Kanon, she straightens her hair (or wears a wig) and puts on the prescribed male servant uniform. When the culprit appears in the manga adaption of Requiem of the Golden Witch she is shown to heavily resemble Yasu in her childhood and has long hair that goes down to her mid back and is wearing a knee length dress with a collar and cravet. This is most likely supposed to be Yasu's appearance had she not changed their appearance to look like the persona Shannon. She also has a small scar on her foot from polydactyly operation. Personality Yasu is always characterized by a feeling of vast lonliness, pain, want for understanding, and horrible body image. When Yasu first appears she are a rather well-behaved, happy, and very lonely child who creates imaginary friends to feel less lonely. As Yasu ages and grows up she builds up more self-confidence when new servants come and along with it Yasu also grew a love for pranks and magic tricks. After meeting Battler however, Yasu's personality starts breeding a shred of bittnerness, anger, and sadness that will continue to grow over time. Yasu continues to grow and become more content even in the loneliness. Once Yasu finds out about the condition of her body however, her personality does a complete turn around and Yasu grows extreme self-worth, body image, and gender identity issues which lead to her calling herself "furniture" and believing she is incapable of love. Bits and pieces of Yasu's full personality are littered throughout Yasu's three personas. When Yasu appears in 1986 she completely lifeless and uncaring of themself and is open to any punishment the roulette will deal out, even death. Past Yasu was the child whom Kinzo gave to Natsuhi Ushiromiya to raise as her own, in attempt to atone for his sin by making a child a proper member of Ushiromiya family and giving it a happy life. However, Natsuhi rejected the child and was left guilt-ridden when the child fell off the cliff along with another servant nineteen years ago. Unknown to Natsuhi and Kinzo, the child survived the incident thanks to Genji and Nanjo. According to Nanjo the child was gravely injured, with their sexual organs badly mutilated. After the accident, Genji decided to keep the child's survival in secret to prevent another incestuous advance by Kinzo. To ensure that child wouldn't be found out easily, Genji lied about Yasu's age, lowering it by three years. Because of Yasu's feebleness and underdevelopment it was easy to fake. Genji personally arranged Yasu's hiring, hoping to reveal the truth if a good opportunity presented itself. He believed that if Kinzo truly felt affection as a parent, he would notice traces of the deceased mother and daughter in the child and Kinzo and Yasu would be able to develop a parent-child relationship without knowledge of truth. Yasu was initially nervous with life on Rokkenjima, which was completely different from the life in Fukuin House and everything was new and unfamiliar. As the youngest servant to work for the Ushiromiya family, Yasu was the only one who missed work in order to go to school. Though Natsuhi and Krauss always thought there was something odd about it, questioning Kinzo, Fukuin House and Genji didn't shed any light on this. Servants also did not welcome the special treatment Yasu was given and often complained about it and even gave her the nickname Yasu, which she despised. Because of Yasu's age and sloppiness, they grew to dislike Yasu even more, while Yasu continued to put effort into whatever work was given. However, older servants were annoyed by how often they had to help Yasu with chores because Yasu's young age didn't allow the young servant to do most things independently. However, these problems were viewed by Yasu as tests from God to help grow into a wonderful person someday. It is mentioned that aside from Shannon, Yasu seemed to be in good relationship with the House Director, who played with and taught Yasu about things that cannot be seen with one's eyes, but with eyes of the heart. This way Yasu learned how to recognise beings not of this world at the Fukuin House and often spent free time in isolated rooms dreaming. Later it is revealed by several monologues that Shannon is Yasu's imaginary friend, and that Yasu has been primarily disguised as Shannon. Basing on Kumasawa's stories of Beatrice's ghost and evil spirits of Rokkenjima, the young servant created the first Beatrice (later known as demon Gaap). When Yasu's sloppiness resulted in incidents like losing keys or cleaning implements, the servant blamed it on Gaap's magic. Yasu and the prototype Beatrice became friends over the small broom which Beatrice hid in order to prank Yasu. Yet even after getting used to life on Rokkenjima, Yasu didn't manage to make a single human friend. To help avoid the witch's pranks, Kumasawa gave Yasu a spiderweb charm (the kite strings) and taught Yasu a method to avoid losing things ('take them home' charm). Kumasawa's charms helped Yasu deal with forgetfulness and regain confidence. As time progressed, the young servant formed a relationship with Kumasawa and started borrowing mystery novels from her. Yasu found discussions and theorizing as the most entertaining part of mystery novels. While reading "''And Then There Were None" Yasu ended up seeing mystery novels as a game between humans and witches. After previous servants left, Yasu decided to make a good impression on new servants and teach them the ropes, being the more experienced one. However, the new servants were already warned about Yasu's carelessness and they didn't take Yasu seriously. Because of that Yasu played a prank on the new servants, claiming that the behavior was the result of being possessed by Beatrice, in hopes that they would begin listening to Yasu. Initially they didn't believe but after some time they started admitting that something inhuman existed on this island, as pranks became harder to explain. The day Beatrice pranked servant for the first time Yasu represented a desire to become a witch rather than a perfect servant, claiming to be done playing the part of the servant. Yasu's world was modified and Yasu took on the name of the Golden Witch, the ruler of Rokkenjima's night, leaving previous Beatrice nameless for a while. Yasu's own self was erased from Shannon's memories, making the supposed two-person into single-person room and Beato took the form of a witch in white dress in accordance with rumors of Beatrice's ghost, the opposite of Gaap's appearance. As time progressed Shannon gained respect from the newer servants. Due to a relationship with Battler and other children, Yasu began to pay more attention to the real world, giving up magic. Few times a year, Shannon and Battler met to discuss mystery novels they read and the motive behind them. Both of them strongly believed that only a heart can move people to commit a murder. At some point these discussions became an excuse for them meeting alone. On the conference of 1980 Battler made a careless promise, which Shannon took seriously. This promise made Yasu think carefully about the future and consider not just quitting work as a servant on Rokkenjima, but also confessing to Battler and sharing a life with him. After Asumu's death and Rudolf's remarriage in 1981 to Kyrie Sumadera, Battler left the family due to a quarrel with his father and didn't participate in the next family meeting. Yasu considered it a trial of love. Battler didn't participate the family meeting in 1982 either, and jokes by the siblings hurt Yasu even more. Yasu started to believe that the trial must be an eternal torture and couldn't believe that Battler may have forgotten Shannon, even after having such a nightmare. The family conference in 1983 became the most influential. Battler gave Kyrie several letters addressed to all the siblings, leaving out Shannon. That event broke Shannon's heart. Shannon "visited" Beatrice, who believed that "the Root of Love" would kill Shannon. As a result, Yasu transferred Shannon's love for Battler to Beatrice, sealing those feelings deep inside the heart. Beatrice gained a form of Battler's ideal woman and learned love in exchange of pain. Yasu promised to create a little brother for Shannon so that she would not be lonely and will keep Battler off her mind. The next morning Kanon started working as one of the rare servants who serves Kinzo directly, like Genji. In April of 1984 the portrait of the Golden Witch and the epitaph, that doesn't exist in Lion's world, were displayed. The epitaph was a message, which only Genji could understand. It is implied that Kinzo, who was facing his last years, already realised that his child Lion is still alive. Afterwards Genji told Shannon and Kanon what was Kinzo's 'beloved hometown', giving Yasu a hint. Once the epitaph was solved, the truth about Yasu's birth was revealed to the young servant. Even after being chosen as the successor to the Ushiromiya family, Yasu decided that Krauss should become the successor and nothing has to change. Yasu only kept Beatrice's dress, the key to the VIP Room, and ten tons of gold. On November 29th, 1984 Yasu became the true Golden Witch Beatrice. Eventually, Shannon and Kanon started relationships with George and Jessica. In last two years Yasu greatly suffered from the conflict of the furniture with incomplete souls. Because of this complex, based on condition of body, Yasu did not believe in having a future, the right to love, and felt less than a human being. To reconcile these feelings, Yasu conceived there was a duel, the result of which was almost decided. During Dawn of the Golden Witch, this duel was assumed to be resolved along with trial of love. In Twilight of the Golden Witch, Shannon and Kanon suggest that the duel can be decided different ways, like coin toss or the quiz tournament. Rokkenjima Massacre On the day of October 4th, 1986, Yasu began their preperations to commence her murder-mystery game, but her plans were foiled by the adults solving the epitaph and discovering the gold. Yasu keeps her promise to stop the murders when the epitaph was solved. She gives the adults the gold card and all 10 tons of gold, along with her cooperation to accept any punishment the adults have for her. Yasu ends up almost being murdered by Kyrie when she begins her assault, though somehow survived and on the morning of October 6th, she escapes the island with Battler. Yasu however doesn't feel she can go on and jumps off the boat with a bar of gold to pull herself to the depths of the ocean. Later on after the incident, Yasu's message bottles which pinned themself as the culprit wash up on the shores of Nijima under the name of Maria Ushiromiya which kick starts everyone's interest in the tragedy of the island. The gender matter Yasu's gender is said to be by Will "one of the story's great mysteries". The manga adaptions go more into detail about Yasu's gender identity issues. While Yasu was born a male the cliff incident left her body mutilated and she was raised as a female. Her not growing chest, the first menstruation that did not come, as well as her face that looked just like a boy on the first glance started developing her doubts concerning her own body, which grew worse day by day. As a result she started dressing as a boy and pretending to be "Kanon" believing it will make her life happier. This game brought her modest amount of mental stability. Genji and Kumasawa strongly supported it all the way. It is also mentioned that she had many complexes as a woman. Different Identities and Illusions It is possible that Yasu created the alter ego Shannon (a perfect maid, loved and respected by everyone; the complete opposite of Yasu), as a role model and friend, before arriving at Rokkenjima. As most of her acquaintances call her the rather rude nickname "Yasu" instead of her blessed name "Shannon", she felt that she could never live up to the name Shannon and hence created an imaginary friend who could. However, a growing interest in magic resulted in Yasu's desire to become a witch rather than remaining human. Abandoning her persona "Shannon" to be her servant facade, Yasu created Clair Vaux Bernardus, the first prototype of the Golden Witch Beatrice, as a self-image. However, a connection still existed between the two identities: Shannon had become the shy and clumsy, but persistent maid, and lover of mystery novels; and Beatrice (the strong side of the two), the ever so powerful and majestic witch. When Shannon's delusional love of Battler winds up causing Yasu too much pain. Beatrice took Shannon's love for Battler and Shannon splintered a part of herself to form Kanon, who would be Shannon's younger brother and will complete her universe. Yasu eventually begins playing the role of Kanon instead of treating him as a mere imaginary friend after realizing that she was born male, in an attempt to discover whether or not acting in a male role would feel more natural to her. Eventually each character developed their own love story: Beatrice-Battler / Shannon-George / Kanon-Jessica * Golden Witch Beatrice (loves Battler) * Shannon (loves George) * Kanon (loves Jessica) Yasu-Beatrice also created imaginary friends alone or with the help of Maria: *Gaap: Yasu's idea of Beatrice before taking the name and the title of a witch. Gaap would be Yasu's first friend on Rokkenjima. *Ronove: Beatrice's butler. (Reflection of Genji) *Virgilia: Beatrice's teacher. (Reflection of Kumasawa). *The Seven Stakes of Purgatory: Beatrice's high class furniture. All the sisters are a reflection of the servants who teased Yasu. (With Maria's help) *The Chiesters: High class furniture made from Maria's bunny forest band. (Maria's furniture) *Sakutaro: Maria's best friend and furniture. (Maria's furniture) Trivia * Yasu's note at the end of Legend of the Golden Witch is very similar to the note Keiichi Maebara left at the end of Onikakushi-hen. *Portraits of Yasu's character/alternate universe self, Beatrice and Lion, have been featured, meaning Yasu is the character with most featured portraits. *Yasu's appearance is not shown in Episode 7 (manga is an exception). Bernkastel constantly displays Yasu as Clair Vaux Bernardus to confuse Theatergoers. Shannon and Kanon are only played roles. *''Twilight of the Golden Witch'' manga shows that Sayo reacted to the truth of being Kinzo's child and granchild incredibly badly. Just the thought of Kinzo's impure blood flowing within her body was too much. As her relationship with George and Jessica grew stronger she couldn't stop thinking about truly being Kinzo's child. *In the "Answer to the Golden Witch", Ryukishi07 responded to "a body that is unable to love" with "If you take this expression as a basis, you can imagine their sad fate of having some kind of imperfection on a sexual level" implying that the injury had some influence on Yasu's sexual problems/gender. He also states that he had to obscure it, because it was a very adult topic. **Also Ryukishi said:"How scary must it be, to be told that your partner “wants children”, when you have a body that cannot make love." - referring to Shannon/Yasu, what might imply that Yasu is unable to have sex. Gallery banquet_yasu.jpg|Possible Yasu appearance in the manga of Banquet of the Golden Witch 11.jpg|Yasu as 'the man from 19 years ago' in the manga of End of the Golden Witch Yasubeato.jpg|Yasu and Beatrice in the manga of Requiem of the Golden Witch Yasu?.jpg|Possible silhouette of Yasu from the manga of Twilight of the Golden Witch Yasushannon.jpg|Yasu and her imaginary friend Shannon during Clair's story in the manga of Requiem of the Golden Witch tumblr_mg4kc33ILA1rzigowo1_500.jpg|Yasu's servant outfit The Culprit.png|A collage of the culprit as they appeared in Requiem of the Golden Witch yasunoooo.png|Yasu as she appears in the EP8 manga, horrified as she realizes that she is not truly female. Category:Characters Category:Ushiromiya Family Category:Androgynous